A young Swedish boy finds himself in penniless and alone in California. He travels East in search of his brother, moving on foot against the great push to the West. Driven back over and over again on his journey through vast expanses, Håkan meets naturalists, criminals, religious fanatics, Indians, and lawmen, and his exploits turn him into a legend. Díaz defies the conventions of historical fiction and genre (travel narratives, the bildungsroman, nature writing, the Western), offering a probing look at the stereotypes that populate our past and a portrait of radical foreignness.
At first, it was a contest, but in time the beasts understood that, with an embrace and the slightest push, they had to lie down on their side and stay until Håkan got up. He did this each time he thought he spied someone on the circular horizon. Had Håkan and his animals ever been spotted, the distant travelers would have taken the vanishing silhouettes for a mirage. But there were no such travelers—the moving shadows he saw almost every day in the distance were illusions. With the double intention of getting away from the trail and the cold, he had traveled south for days.
An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth — all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.
Hernan Diaz’s TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another — and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.
At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.
Даже сквозь рев и грохот 1920-х годов все слышали о Бенджамине и Хелен Раск. Он легендарный магнат с Уолл-Стрит, она — дочь эксцентричных аристократов. Вместе они поднялись на самую вершину мира. Но какой ценой они приобрели столь огромное состояние? Мы узнаем об этом из нескольких источников. Из книги «Облигации» о жизни миллионера. Из мемуаров Раска, который решает сам рассказать свою историю. От машинистки, которая записывает эти мемуары и замечает, что история и реальность начинают расходиться, особенно в эпизодах, которые касаются его жены. И — из дневников Хелен. Чей голос честнее, а кто самый ненадежный рассказчик? Как вообще представления о реальности сосуществуют с самой реальностью?
«Доверие» — одновременно захватывающая история и блестящая литературная головоломка.